“The sâledes elskede Gud Verden, at han gav sin Søm den enbârne,” Aksel Bang recited happily, “for at hver den, som tror pa ham, ikke skal fortahes, men have et evigt luv.” Sharpe tried not to look at the mustached guard, hoping that the sound of Danish would mislead the sentries. The saber scabbard was high at his side, awkwardly trapped beneath his coat by his left elbow. He kept his head down, pretending to be paying close attention to Bang’s fervent words. Their footsteps echoed under the arch. Sharpe smelt the tobacco as he walked past the guard. He felt conspicuous, sure that one of the men would reach out and take his elbow, but they were out of the gate tunnel and crossing a wide-open area that lay between the walls and the canal-like lakes that protected the city’s landward ramparts. Sharpe sighed with relief.
“Beautiful words,” Bang said happily.
“Indeed,” Sharpe said, his relief making him sound fervent.
Bang finally abandoned Sharpe’s soul. “You have met Mister Skovgaard before?” he asked.
“No.” They were on a causeway that crossed the canal and Sharpe at last was feeling safe.
“I ask because it is rumored that England is sending an army to take our fleet. Is that true, do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
Bang glanced at the saber scabbard that Sharpe had let drop now that they were out of the city and in the less populated suburbs. “I think you are a soldier, perhaps,” Bang said.
“I was,” Sharpe said curtly.
“The buttons on your coat, yes? And the sword. I wanted to be a soldier, but my father believed I should learn business and Mister Skovgaard is a very able teacher. I am lucky, I think. He is a good man.”
“And rich?” Sharpe asked sourly. They had left the road to walk through a cemetery, but beyond the graveyard’s low wall he could see big houses standing in tree-shaded gardens.
“He is wealthy, yes,” Bang said, “but in matters of the spirit he is poor. His son died, as did his wife, God bless their souls, as did his daughter’s husband and her son. Four deaths in three years! Now all that is left is Mister Skovgaard and Astrid.”
Something in Bang’s voice made Sharpe glance at him. So that was how the land lay. Skovgaard had a daughter and no son, which meant the daughter would inherit. “And the daughter,” Sharpe asked, “she hasn’t married again?”
“Not yet,” Bang said with studied carelessness, then he unlatched the cemetery gate and waved Sharpe through.
They walked up a street edged with trees until they reached a white-painted gate beyond which lay one of the big houses. Its bricks and red roof tiles were hardly discolored, suggesting the house was only a year or two old. Back in the city a church sclock struck half past eight, the sound echoed by other church bells in the suburbs as Bang led Sharpe up the long carriage drive.
An elderly servant, soberly dressed in a brown suit with silver buttons, opened the door. He did not seem surprised to see Aksel Bang, though he frowned at the mud and hay on Sharpe’s coat. Bang spoke in Danish to the servant who bowed and left. “You will tarry here, please,” Bang told Sharpe, “and I shall tell Mister Skovgaard of your coming.” Bang disappeared down a short paneled corridor while Sharpe looked around the tiled hall. A crystal chandelier hung above him, an eastern rug was underfoot and from one of the closed doors came the sound of tinkling music. A spinet or harpsichord, Sharpe was not sure which. He took off his hat and caught sight of himself in a gilt-framed looking glass that hung above a spindly table on which a china bowl held a pile of visiting cards. He grimaced at his reflection, picked some more hay off his coat and tried to smooth his hair. The music had stopped and Sharpe, still staring at the mirror, saw the door behind him open.
He turned and for the first time since Grace had died he felt his heart leap.
A girl dressed all in black stood looking at him with an expression of astonished delight. She was tall, very fair-haired and blue-eyed. Later, much later, Sharpe would notice she had a wide forehead, a generous mouth, a long straight nose and a quick laugh, but at that moment he just stared at her and she stared back and the welcoming look of pleasure on her face died to be replaced by a puzzled sadness. She said something in Danish.
“I’m sorry,” Sharpe said.
“You are English?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“Yes, miss.”
She stared at him oddly, then shook her head. “You look so like someone else”—she paused—“someone I knew.” There were tears in her eyes. “I am Skovgaard’s daughter,” she introduced herself. “Astrid.”
“Richard Sharpe, miss,” he said. “You speak good English.”
“My mother was English.” She glanced down the corridor. “You are here to see my father?”
“I hope so.”
“Then I am sorry to have disturbed you,” she said.
“You were playing?” Sharpe asked.
“I am not good.” She offered him a quick and embarrassed smile. “I have to practice.” She gave him a last puzzled look, then went back into the room. She left the door ajar and, after a moment, a few solitary notes sounded again.
Two men came to fetch Sharpe. Like the servant who had answered the door, they were both dressed in brown, but these men were much younger. They also looked fit and hard. One jerked his head and Sharpe obediently followed them down the short passage. The door at the end squeaked alarmingly but opened into an elegant room where Aksel Bang was standing beside a thin man who was sitting at a desk, his head bowed. Sharpe dropped his pack, coat and hat on a chair and waited. The door squealed shut behind him, then the two young men, evidently guards, stood not far behind him.
The room was a study, but large enough to hold a small dance. Bookcases filled with forbidding leather volumes lined two walls, the third had tall glass doors opening onto a garden while the fourth was paneled in a pale wood that surrounded a carved marble hearth above which hung a portrait of a gloomy man dressed in preacher’s black with Geneva bands. Then the man behind the desk laid down his pen, unhooked a pair of spectacles from his ears and looked up at Sharpe. He blinked with apparent astonishment when he saw his visitor’s face, but hid whatever surprised him. “I am Ole Skovgaard,” he said in a gravelly voice, “and Aksel has forgotten your name.”
“Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, sir.”
“An Englishman,” Skovgaard said disapprovingly. “An Englishman,” he said again, “yet you look just like my poor son-in-law, God rest his soul. You did not meet Nils, did you, Aksel?”
“I did not enjoy that privilege, sir,” Bang said, bobbing his head with pleasure at being addressed by his employer.
“He looked exactly like that Englishman,” Skovgaard said. “The resemblance is, what is the word? Extraordinary.” He shook his head in wonderment. He had sunken cheeks, a tall forehead and an expression of severe disapproval. He looked to be in his fifties, though his fair hair had no gray yet. “Do you spell your name with an ‘e’?” he asked and, when Sharpe confirmed the spelling, hooked the spectacles over his ears and made a note with a scratching quill. “And you are a lieutenant, yes? In the navy or the army? And what regiment?” His English was perfect. He wrote down Sharpe’s answers, blew on the wet ink, then toyed with an ivory letter opener as he looked Sharpe up and down. After a while he gave a small shrug then turned to Bang. “Perhaps, Aksel, you would wait in the parlor with Miss Astrid?”
“Of course, of course.” Bang looked absurdly pleased as he hurried from the room.
“Tell me, Lieutenant Sharpe,” Skovgaard said, “what brings you to my house?”
“I was told you’d help me, sir.”
“By whom?”
“By Lord Pumphrey, sir.”
“I have never heard of Lord Pumphrey,” Skovgaard said bleakly. He stood and crossed to a side table. He was dressed all in black and had a black crepe mourning band about his right sleeve. He was so thin he looked like a skeleton walking. He selected a pipe from a rack, filled it with tobacco from a jar that had a painted dragon circling its belly, then carried a silver tinderbox back to his desk. He struck the charred linen alight, transferred the flame to a spill and lit the pipe. He waited till the tobacco was burning evenly. “Why would this Lord Pumphrey believe I would help you?”